Tag Archives: new music

What I’ve been listening to lately

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Josh Stewart & Dan Snyder, 1850. One of the free albums I downloaded from NoiseTrade, it’s a spooky post-rock album with atmospherics that remind me of Global Communication and Boards of Canada.

Paper Lights, Great Escapes. Dan Snyder is also the man behind this band (I got one of his earlier EPs from NoiseTrade and bought this one when it dropped). I seem to really enjoy quirky one-man-band groups (Decomposure is another). This album’s quite relaxing; I often listen to it during my editing sessions.

Big Jesus, Oneiric Sampler EP. These young’uns have no right to rock this hard and melodic. Another NoiseTrade find, and I’m totes going to buy the album when it drops. They’ve got that fast grunge sound that reminds me of Helmet, balancing it with a bit of soaring guitar noodling reminiscent of POD. Expecting great things from this band.

The Avalanches, Wildflower. Apparently its de rigeur now to let a decade and a half go by between albums? Heh. A welcome return to a band that’s inventive, fun, and oftentimes a bit silly.

The Temper Trap, Thick as Thieves. A very strong third album from this Aussie band, it sounds much heavier and crunchier than their previous albums.

Garbage, Strange Little Birds. Been a fan since their first album, and this new one is just as excellent as the rest of them. I’ve been playing this one a lot during the day, but I’m sure it’ll get more play during my evening writing sessions soon enough.

Paul Draper, One EP. It’s been quite some time since we’ve heard from the former Mansun lead singer, but it’s well worth the wait. I’m really hoping he comes out with more tunes soon!

Minor Victories, Minor Victories. Rachel Goswell from Slowdive, Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai, and Justin Lockey from Editors? A cat kaiju (nekaiju?) video? HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY BE A BAD THING.

And one more, this from about nine years ago…

Blonde Redhead, 23. I’d been hearing the title track popping up on KSCU every now and again, and I kept forgetting how much I loved the song, so I put the album on my mp3 player. It ended up being my falling-asleep music on the plane out to Europe a few weeks back, and man, I couldn’t have picked a better album! A mix of 4AD moodiness and noise-rock hinting at Silversun Pickups. Totally worth having in your collection.

Weekend Fly-By

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Oof!  Yeah, still working on the final revision/edit of The Persistence of Memories, and it’ll be another few weeks before I can give myself a breather.  The soft release date at the moment is “sometime mid-April”, but I’ll let you all know more as soon as I have more concrete plans!  At present I’m THISCLOSE (translation: about forty or so pages) to finishing the revision/edit, I’ve made a quick mock-up of the cover (which you can see at Welcome to Bridgetown).  Once the edit’s done, then comes the formatting and the uploading.   And then FINALLY I can get back to a normal schedule again.  [That is, until I start the same process once more with The Balance of Light.  Whee!]

In the meantime, I’ve been on a School of Seven Bells kick lately, partly due to their release of their last album, SVIIB (recorded just before Benjamin Curtis passed away).  Jangly shoegazey goodness that kind of reminds me of Lush with a bit of Stereolab mixed in.  Enjoy!

See you soon!

Fly-By: Slow music week

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Yeah, as always, the first couple of weeks of the new year are always scant when it comes to new releases.  I’ve been busy doing a lot of book editing, so instead I’ve been listening to random things here and there.   Not much to report on, sadly.

However, I did notice that my birthday (next Friday) will contain releases by Chairlift, Savages, Shearwater, Steven Wilson, Suede, Tortoise and Tricky, so there may be a bit of mp3 purchasing and stream listening going on this coming week.

Hopefully I shall have more to report by then!

I should, however, share this absoutely darling three-piece that I found on NoiseTrade the other week called (appropriately) The Feels:

Until next time!

 

[Of course, I could comment on the passing of Lemmy and David Bowie.  I sort of knew about Motorhead, and that they appeared on a quite hilarious episode of The Young Ones singing “Ace of Spades”, and I have all kinds of fond memories watching David Bowie’s videos back in the day.  I was actually quite a passive fan, liking many of his singles but never quite getting around to buying the albums until 1997’s Earthling.  (For a while I also had a lingering dislike of Hunky Dory due to my freshman year roommate in college listening to it on endless repeat, much to my severe annoyance.)  Still, I definitely appreciate all that both men have given to the music field.  They will be sadly missed.]